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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x15 - "Will You Take My Hand?"

Rate the episode...

  • 10 - A wonderful season finale!

    Votes: 89 26.2%
  • 9

    Votes: 51 15.0%
  • 8

    Votes: 64 18.8%
  • 7

    Votes: 46 13.5%
  • 6

    Votes: 18 5.3%
  • 5

    Votes: 24 7.1%
  • 4

    Votes: 15 4.4%
  • 3

    Votes: 10 2.9%
  • 2

    Votes: 7 2.1%
  • 1 - An awful season finale.

    Votes: 16 4.7%

  • Total voters
    340
USING AN S INSTEAD OF A Z IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO DAMNIT!

Every time I get a squiggly read line under a word like colonise or prioritise I smash a display case full of Enterprise's, both historical and current like Picard did in First Contact.

I shall never concede to this; never!

You do have a really awesome way of pronouncing "schedule," though.

...or should I say, zchedule!
 
Yes. Let's review what they wrote on DS9:

Rules of Engagement - Dumb Klingon law episode
The Assignment - Introduction to Pah Wraiths when Keiko is possessed by one.
Business as Usual - Fairly decent Quark episode
Sons and Daughters - Alexander comes back, Worf is still a terrible father. Oh, and stuff with Ziyal happens
One Little Ship - The shrunk runabout episode
Inquisition - Introduction of Section 31. Would have been a decent episode if it was left here.
The Reckoning - Another stupid Pah-Wraith episode, which culminates in a magic fight on the prominade. Sisko is out of character as he's willing to sacrifice his son for the will of the prophets.
Time's Orphan - The episode where Molly falls through a time portal and ages 10 years
Treachery, Faith, and the Great River - A legitimately good episode revolving around Weyoun/Odo (A plot) and Nog (B plot)
Prodigal Daughter - An absolutely abysmal attempt to round out Ezri by showing us her family.
Til Death Do Us Part - Forgettable second episode in the final ten-episode arc. Most notable for Dukat and Winn hooking up - and of course the Sisko wedding.
Extreme Measures - SLOAN'S BRAIN!!!!11!!11!1!!

From the looks of it, Weddle/Thomas are behind two of the worst aspects of DS9 - Section 31 and the Pah Wraiths. Most of the remainder of their episodes were just terrible concepts, and often bad at execution as well. I think they did two genuinely good episodes (Business as Usual and Treachery, Faith, and The Great River). But if I was going to pick the best writer on DS9, it was definitely Peter Allan Fields.

I flat-out love about half the episodes on the list, and am tremendously entertained by the rest (except Prodigal Daughter), so it's not a super convincing argument.

They also wrote on The Strain, so there's ample evidence both ways.

(And I like The Strain ☺)

This, however, gives me pause.
 
I flat-out love about half the episodes on the list, and am tremendously entertained by the rest (except Prodigal Daughter), so it's not a super convincing argument.



.

#imwithyou on this, man. I love most of those episodes as well with the exceptions of prodigal daughter, and the Winn/dukat hook up part of 'til death do us part' (they were sick sons of bitches to inflict that on the audience). Also Time's orphan i usally skip that. It's like molly fell down a time well, who cares.
 

stimulation.jpg
 
They really need to spend more time on SFX. From what I've heard they were really chasing the deadlines.

I thought the SFX were pretty good. There was a nice weight to Discovery as it stabilized itself in the underground caverns. It's a small moment, but one of my favorites
 
The #1 thing they need to spend time on is characterization in Season 2.

I mean, honestly, Harry Kim was a better fleshed out character than Saru, Stamets, or Tilly.

Seriously? he remained Ensign Eager for all of seven years and every time he showed growth, he was regressed by the next episode. The exception is Kim being given extra responsibility to command the ship on the night shift, but that still went nowhere. Saru went from being a cowardly lion who second guessed himself to an able starship commander, stamets went from cantankerous and anti-social to less cantankerous and began engaging in friendships with other crewmembers and also less full of himself. And sweet beautiful Tilly, went from being an awkward, wide-eyed cadet who dreamed of being on the command track to someone who was able to assert herself when the need arose, stand up to senior officers and got herself onto the command track. Also they all got promotions.
 
The #1 thing they need to spend time on is characterization in Season 2.

I mean, honestly, Harry Kim was a better fleshed out character than Saru, Stamets, or Tilly.

Harry Kim missed his parents and played the clarinet; he may have also kept Neelix as a pet and had a tattoo on his face. I'm 95% certain he destroyed Boothby's shack with a frozen dodge ball.
 
Seriously? he remained Ensign Eager for all of seven years and every time he showed growth, he was regressed by the next episode. The exception is Kim being given extra responsibility to command the ship on the night shift, but that still went nowhere. Saru went from being a cowardly lion who second guessed himself to an able starship commander, stamets went from cantankerous and anti-social to less cantankerous and began engaging in friendships with other crewmembers and also less full of himself. And sweet beautiful Tilly, went from being an awkward, wide-eyed cadet who dreamed of being on the command track to someone who was able to assert herself when the need arose, stand up to senior officers and got herself onto the command track. Also they all got promotions.

Harry Kim had a personality. He played the clarinet. He was close to his parents. He left a girlfriend at home. He was good friends with Tom Paris. He was almost universally terrible with women. He didn't have character growth, but he had a character. Frankly, a lot of people are stagnant through their adult life, so his portrayal was very realistic.

The same is not true in Discovery. Does Saru have any hobbies? Has Tilly dated someone seriously? Does Stamets have any living family? We have no idea, because the show is so stingy with the sort of "Piller filler" earlier Trek shows had. It was crammed so heavily with plot that it didn't step back and let us know much of anything about the characters - unless it somehow interfaced with Burnham's arc. The one major exception was Stamets having his relationship established with Culber - which had a few sweet moments. But once the series checked off the box of "gay relationship established" it was essentially jettisoned.

I don't care if the characters had an arc during the season really, because I don't know much about who they are yet. They still seem more like archetypes to me than plausible human beings.

Hell, lemme give you an example of what I mean. On another forum, someone linked to this scene from DS9:

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This is a great scene, because in only 90 seconds, we get a great reinforcement of character traits of half of the main cast. Quark is conniving but lovable. Worf is angry and has no sense of humor. Odo is perpetually exasperated with Quark. Kira flies off the handle. O'Brien's just an everyman with a job to do and wants to get back to it.
 
Harry Kim had a personality. He played the clarinet. He was close to his parents. He left a girlfriend at home. He was good friends with Tom Paris. He was almost universally terrible with women. He didn't have character growth, but he had a character. Frankly, a lot of people are stagnant through their adult life, so his portrayal was very realistic.

The same is not true in Discovery. Does Saru have any hobbies? Has Tilly dated someone seriously? Does Stamets have any living family? We have no idea, because the show is so stingy with the sort of "Piller filler" earlier Trek shows had. It was crammed so heavily with plot that it didn't step back and let us know much of anything about the characters - unless it somehow interfaced with Burnham's arc. The one major exception was Stamets having his relationship established with Culber - which had a few sweet moments. But once the series checked off the box of "gay relationship established" it was essentially jettisoned.

I don't care if the characters had an arc during the season really, because I don't know much about who they are yet. They still seem more like archetypes to me than plausible human beings.

Hell, lemme give you an example of what I mean. On another forum, someone linked to this scene from DS9:

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

This is a great scene, because in only 90 seconds, we get a great reinforcement of character traits of half of the main cast. Quark is conniving but lovable. Worf is angry and has no sense of humor. Odo is perpetually exasperated with Quark. Kira flies off the handle. O'Brien's just an everyman with a job to do and wants to get back to it.

Ah yes, I see your point now. I misunderstood and thought you were talking about character growth. I think out of the three characters you mentioned Saru probably came in last. We know he like blueberries, and his people got eaten a lot but that is about it. Stamets however we did get some info, like his uncle is in a beatles cover band and he likes opera and that tilly annoys him. We know that part of the reason for tilly being the way she is is because of her mother, who it's implied she does not have a great relationship with. Also she does seem to be fairly carefree about relationships and has mentioned different phases that she went through, example being, having a previous 'thing' for military men and more recently musicians. But yes I agree that we did not get as much Piller filler. One of the issues i had with Discovery is the breakneck speeds of the episodes, there was often little room for the characters to breath and for those piller filler moments to be injected. Hopefully that will change in season 2.
 
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I mean, honestly, Harry Kim was a better fleshed out character than Saru, Stamets, or Tilly.

Harry Kim was a nervous, unproven and an unconfident Ensign when he started. But by God, by the end of 7 seasons, 75,000 Ly from home, filled with dangerous missions, dealing with life or death situations to get coffee out of nebulas, that boy came out a Man. Because age. There was literally not a single difference between "Caretaker" Kim and "Endgame" Kim. As a viewer, I would much rather have Saru, Stamets or Tilly on a show. They have not yet whined for 7 seasons, while each getting much deserved promotions during the show. Cmd. Saru was awesome, showed great leadership skills and the first Kelpian to receive medal of honour. Lt Cmd. Stamets developed a way to fly across the galaxy in an instint (without turning the pilot into a space-lizard), willing to sacrifice it all to save lives. He lost a loved one and carried on his duty. Ens. Tilly not only proved to be an everyday, lovable human badass who knows her shit, she did all this before even being promoted an Ensign.

Harry Kim = Ensign Mayweather (if he had a friend)
 
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Frankly, a lot of people are stagnant through their adult life, so his portrayal was very realistic.

This is the most depressing thing I've read all day. Totally re-evaluating my life right now.

Anywho, I'm not inclined to disagree about good old Harry Kim (clarinet playing mamma's boy), but I would say you're not allowing the Discovery crew the same leeway as you do him. We don't about Tilly's boyfriends, but we do know shes the nervous girl who's wild at parties and is seriously ambitious about command training (she's also known in the Mirror Universe as Sylvia MuthaF**king Killy!). We don't know about Saru's hobbies, but we know he hero worshiped Captain Georgiou, is constantly plagued with fear, and swings his arms at his sides 'cause he's got mad strides (yo).

You're quick to dismiss Stamets's relationship with Culber, but I think their relationship tracked nicely (until Culber's neck was unceremoniously broken). I recall Culber's McCoy-esque annoyance with Stamets for risking his life early on (which was nice foreshadowing of their relationship), their heart to heart while brushing their teeth, the beautiful story Stamets told Burnham of how they met, a catatonic Stamets whisking Culber's body away from sickbay to protect his already gone love, their final goodbye in the mycelial realm, and the memory of Dr. Culber helping Stamets pilot Discovery home from the Mirror Universe. (On top of this, Stamets hates lurkers, hates military appropriation of science, enjoys friendly rivalries with scientific colleagues, has an uncle in a Beatles cover band, and was testy/obstinate until a fateful run-in with tardigrade DNA).

Discovery is more densely plotted due to it's serialized format divided by its short season, and it didn't have that many scenes in Ten Forward with the crew watching Riker play trombone, but it still had great character building. Are they all the equal of Jadzia Dax or Harry Kim? No, but not one is a cardboard cutout.
 
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